Spring Returning
by Kou-kun
Summary: Sometimes your past is meant to be left behind you in your path, Footsteps to be erased, Memories to be kept inside. [[Chapter Error Corrected]]
1. Prologue

Naruto sat on the edge of the cliff, staring down at Konohagakure. It had been ages since he'd seen his teammates, or any of his friends, for that matter. His feet swung in the air, a breeze ruffling his orange shorts as he leaned back onto his elbows. He was dangling his feet over the forehead of the Hokage Monument, remembering a time from before he was a ninja.   
  
'It was so long ago..' He thought to himself, his now longer blonde hair blowing to cover his eyes. The sky was a saphire blue above him, and as he swept his hair behind his ears, he stared into it. A cloud swirled it's way in front of his vision, and he thought for a few moments why it was that people no longer noticed the beauty of the sky. He remembered a time when he, too, took no heed of the openness that engulfed him. Kakashi had, he remembered. Before Naruto left, Kakashi-sensei had been constantly staring upwards. Whether, like Naruto, he took a fascination in clouds, or if he was simply admiring the birds, he would never know.   
  
'Not unless you go down there and ask him.' Naruto startled himself with this thought, his gaze returning to the villiage before him. He raised his legs up and turned over, laying forward to peer down into the valley below. The grass tickled his face and for a moment he closed his eyes, feeling the gentle breeze of spring. For a whoozy moment, Naruto envisioned the bright pink sakura petals from when he was a young child. His blue eyes opened instantly.  
  
"Sakura-chan.." He whispered, sitting up. He brushed off his knees, staring downwards for a last few moments as he hesitated on his decision. But no, he must go. If his question to Kakashi did not lure him into the old villiage, the pink-haired beauty would. Naruto stood fully, picking up his pack from the ground beside him. His white T-shirt was stained with dust, which he brushed off as he slowly hiked down the path. Stones skittered out of his way and dust rustled up from the grasses, but Naruto did not feel it tickle his legs. His mouth hung slightly open, as he forced back the depressing memories which invaded him more and more as he inched toward the heart of the villiage. Finally, the shade of shallow trees covered his head. He listened to the sounds that accompanied early spring. The first birds, the rustling of leaves, the whistle of insects by his ear. His feet splashed through puddles as the path widened and evened out, leading directly into a busy marketplace. Naruto vaguely recognized a few people who were once mere strangers of his past. He felt a Sakura petal tickle his arm and pushed his legs forward into the bustle of people.   
  
A few people stared as he made his way to where Sakura used to live. He was not sure if he was ready to see her, but he knew by now that she didn't live with her parents anymore. 9 years ago, he remembered, she had wanted nothing more than to be on her own. At 22 years she must have her own place. Maybe her parents could buy him some time by directing him to her. He doubted they would recognize him, he had aged and they had never known him well.  
  
More stares encompassed walking through the villiage, but Naruto ignored them and casually stuck his hands in his pockets. He fumbled with a few things that lay there, and old, dull Shuriken and foreign currency from his long absence. His pack, once heavy on his shoulders, now barely weighed him down. His face was grungy with dirt and he needed to shave, but Naruto's face was impacted most by the weathered look of sorrow. Being back in Konoha brought the shine into his eyes again, but his lips and cheeks still wore sullen expressions. His throat was dry with thirst. As he creaked up the wooden steps to the Haruno house, Naruto noticed that the once upbeat and tidy look to the place had left. He rang the rusted doorbell and stepped back, glancing around at the waterstained woodwork and windows. The door opened, a flurry of chipped paint falling to the welcome mat.   
  
It was Sakura.   
  
Naruto stood speechless, as he saw recognition in her eyes. Their emerald tone shone over with sorrow and pain and love all mixed into one emotion: shock.  
  
"N.. Naruto-kun?"  
  
A/N--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Prologue. NaruSaku Friendship(could turn into more), major character death next chapter.  
  
Welcome me back. I am planning a few stories right now, one involving Lee and his mix-up of emotions, blah blah blah... Look out for more of me ^_~  
  
-Kounouri 


	2. Dolphin Gone

Sakura's hand shook as she held a mug of tea in front of her. Across the unstable tabletop sat Naruto, who was fumbling with the spoon in his drink. Neither of them remembered how or why to talk. A flood of memories invaded their minds, of the Academy days, of being a Genin, of the Chuunin exams... and what happened afterwards. There they sat for the good end of an hour, fumbling and shaking, remembering and thinking.   
  
"Where were you?" Sakura finally forced out. Naruto opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead closed it again and grinned at her.  
  
"Everywhere, nowhere, the whole world within a few seconds it seems." He stared at her for a moment, his thoughts whirring to the many times he had missed her when he was gone. She simply looked back down at her tea, taking a miniscule sip. She, also, looked beaten by life. The proud ignorance that had once thrived in her spirit now lay dormant. She was still wearing a red outfit, like so many years before, but now it was casual and unappealing. Her arms, legs and body were thin and worn out. Inside her face and eyes lay all the beauty she once wore all over.   
  
Sakura folded her legs underneath her, staring halfheartedly out the window, where the late morning sun warmed her view. She sipped her tea cautiously, pondering her words inside her mind. A few times she opened her mouth to speak as Naruto had done, but like her old friend, she was speechless.   
  
"Nine years... So much has happened, your world is changed, Naruto. Konoha is no longer what it used to be. Although you have finally returned to us, your heart is still left nine years ago in the old Konohagakure." She turned her head to him, her eyes dull and her lips controlled. Her gaze was steady into his, unlocking all of Naruto's hidden emotions. He smiled warmly at her.   
  
"Still prefer to call me Naruto, eh, Sakura-san?" The name rang familiarly off his tongue, as though he spoke it day after day, but it too had changed with age. Formality had increased it's control over familiarity. Sakura grimaced, a twisted, dusty form of what wished to be a smile.   
  
"Whatever you choose to hear, Naruto." She placed her empty cup on the table and stood up, pushing her chair in. "Now. You came here to do something, to say something, and I want to know what that is." She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, before taking his cup with hers and carrying them to the sink to wash. The tap ran freely as she poured in the soap, feigning business that was not there in reality.   
  
"I came here because I am finished with what I had to do, Sakura-san. No other reason. I came HERE, to your house, because I have no other home." He pulled up his legs to the chair aswell, staring at her back as she turned off the tap, but still stayed facing away.   
  
"What did you do then? You say you have no other home. This is not your home nor mine, I have none. Do what you came to do and leave, Naruto." She turned and stared at him blankly. He stood, sighing.  
  
"What I did is not your business. I guess I should go find Iruka, then." He turned to leave, but noticed a softening in Sakura's expression as he spoke his old teacher's name. He paused, heart pounding.   
  
"Sakura.." Her name changed yet again as he cautioned the words that would come from her. "What.. what happened.."   
  
The two stood in harsh silence for moments as Sakura closed her eyes, swallowing and opening them again. She avoided his eyes. Naruto knew what was coming, but he chose not to let that sink in. He grabbed Sakura by the shoulders, forcing his eyes into hers.   
  
"Sakura!" He shouted, shaking her. "What.. HAPPENED?!" He kept his grip on her shoulders, as he saw tears flood from her eyes. His knuckles turned white. Over all those years, he had become sullen, worn and pained. He had become numb. No longer was he enthousiastic and excited, no longer was he ignorant or obnoxious. He felt, sometimes, as if pain had scarred him so that nothing which was originally there in his spirit could show. Now, though, a fresh cut was added to his mind, to his heart...   
  
"Tell me." He told the crying girl, dropping his arms. She leaned against the counter, staring up at the ceiling to stop her tears. Finally, she spoke.   
  
"He's gone, Naruto." Silence. "He's gone, for a long, long time." Sakura could not bear to tell her old friend the news directly, she could not murder someone like that. She could not simply say, 'Iruka is dead,' She could not and WOULD not. "You will not see him again. He.. he just slept, one morning, that turned into an afternoon. People pounded on his door, they heard him shouting to go away. Finally, he stopped. He ignored them. And.. And then Kakashi.. found him, and his Kunai, and his.. his red, red blood..." Sakrua sealed her eyes shut.   
  
Naruto could not think. He closed his eyes, focusing to keep breathing. He was dizzy, his knees were weak. His mind formed the words and he stuggled to push them out. When they did, they were faintly a whisper. It was so quiet in the house that he felt as though he was yelling.  
  
"You're lying." His accusing words shot back at him, and he winced. Without waiting for a reply, he ran out of the room, the small house confusing him. He pushed open the door, stumbled down the stairs. Tears stained his face. A woman acrossed the street pulled her child closer to her, giving Naruto a glare. He spat at her.  
  
"WHAT?!" He shouted, running down the humble street aimlessly. His feet became numb and he forgot that he was moving. his mind flew him to a far away place, of memories and happiness with his old friend. He saw Iruka in a million different places, in a million different times, and although he had not been there, He saw Iruka dying. He tripped, instinctively putting his hands out to block the fall. They scraped against stone and mixed blood with dirt and tears. He collapsed, rolling onto his back and heaving to breathe. His eyes were closed. He felt pain shoot through him, in his hands and in his mind. Returning home may not have been the best thing to do.  
  
"If you had stayed away, Naruto, where would you be?" Naruto's eyes shot open. The voice came from a few feet away, a figure standing in the cover of the trees. Naruto did not sit up to see who it was. He would rather not. There was something familiar about the voice, a far-away whisp of what used to be. The voice was proud, but even. Older. It continued to speak.  
  
"If you had not known about Iruka, he still would have been gone." The voice had a point. Whoever it was knew why Naruto was laying there pathetically. Naruto's chest rose up and down rythmically. "A lot has changed since you left. I suppose it is a shock for you to be here again. The rest of who you left behind, those who expected to leave this haven, saw it fit to stay when the war turned it to chaos. But you left. Many thought you ran away. Iruka was one of them."   
  
Naruto closed his eyes, weariness taking over. He held them closed and tried opening them again. The figure walked out of the shadows, but his vision was too blurry to make out anything more than a lean silhouette. Naruto's awareness swayed dizzily in and out of conciousness. Only a few moments passed.   
  
"Your absence may have been why Iruka killed himself. But it was only a year ago when that happened, and so much more since you left. I saw that you were not running away but outsmarting us all, Kyuubi." Naruto felt himself being picked up, and the gentle movement of footsteps lulled him into unconciousness.   
  
When he awoke, Naruto was lying in a comfortable bed by a large, double window. It was late night, or early morning, He was unable to tell. The moon was still(or already) shining brightly, full. Stars scattered the springtime sky and a gentle, soundless breeze silhouetted Sakura petals blowing by. Naruto sighed inaudibly. He knew where he was, he rocognized the room, the house, the yard around it. Suddenly, he knew the person who hosted the voice back in the trees. He knew who took the time to pick him up and take care of him, not anger at him for leaving. Unlike those who had cared for him and were still upset over his absence, shocked by his return, and unlike those who dreaded him and his new entrance to Konohagakure, and most unlike those that didn't know, Uchiha Sasuke had used Naruto's leaving to calm his rivalry and take on a new viewpoint.  
  
On the floor, beside him, Sasuke lay sleeping. His face had barely changed and his body was still strong and trained. His hair was longer, tied back. Naruto sat up, swinging his feet down to the cold of the hardwood floor. His shorts swished loduly in the silent night as he crept out of the room, out of the house. In the chilly nighttime air, Naruto sat, on the curb, staring up. Maybe it was not clouds or stars that fascinated him but the reminder of an open world around him, the constant message telling him how small and insignificant he really was. Here Naruto sat for hours, looking up, looking around, laying down or pacing. Only when the dawn snuck up the horizon did Naruto walk back into the house, barefoot, and close the door behind him.   
  
By the looks of it, Sasuke was still alone.  
  
"Hard to believe.." Naruto hmphed, knowing how many girls had once wished only to be with him. When the blonde man looked around, he saw nothing hanging on the walls but weapons and family tapestries. He saw a clean kitchen, a clean living room, a clean bathroom. Clean, clean, everywhere. But Naruto suspected something more underneath the cleanliness, a pain that was deeper than his own, a loneliness uncurable. He saw Sasuke, as he had never thought of the man before.   
  
The floor creaked from inside the bedroom, And Naruto walked limberly over to the couch, where he sat and grabbed a book. Some novel about ninjas, he found, and dropped the book that did not interest him. He folded his arms, laid back, and waited for his old afilliate to emerge. Everything in Sasuke's house was the same as it had been 9 years before. Naruto, before he left, had never considered anything about the feigned cleanliness. Now, older, he realized that Sasuke had bore the pain when he was 12 just as he did when he was 22.   
  
"Naruto." Sasuke leaned against the doorway, watching the blonde sit up. Naruto rested his elbows on his knees and looked casually at the man. So familiar yet strange. "You're back." He spoke as if he'd not known, but his face was red from the floor and he had obviously not woken in the bed. His arms were dirty from Naruto's clothes when he'd picked the man up last night. "So long it's been."   
  
Sasuke tossed Naruto his bag, retrieved from the Haruno household. He instantly realized how Sasuke'd known about his reaction to Iruka's death. Naruto put the bag down in front of him, keeping his eyes on it as he fumbled with the zipper.  
  
"Why is she still living with her parents?" A Sakura petal blew in through the window, and Naruto reached to catch it. He did not close his fingers but let the pink flower land in his palm, as he stared at it. Sasuke sighed.   
  
"She's not. Her parents moved into a home a few villiages over." Sasuke talked casually, as though he now surrendered to villiage life instead of a noble NinJitsu adventure. Instead of avengement. Naruto sighed.  
  
"Things really have changed."   
  
A/N-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Sorry for not ending this chapter dramatically or anything. Enough drama for today. I warn you, this was a SUPER QUICK update. Later chapters will take ages -_-;;  
  
Okay, so maybe Iruka isn't a very major character.. _ But oh well  
  
-Kounouri 


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